Right Side Down
by Nitlon
Summary: Zemyx, AU. "Zexion, you have no personality." Involves socks.


Warning/justification: I have put very little effort into this. If you are looking for some epically hilarious, ridiculous, amazing, heart-wrenching tale of love and gay men, look elsewhere. I literally just sat myself down and gave myself the prompt "must contain the phrase 'Zexion, you have no personality' and must include socks." Like that's seriously all I did. I am just a really confused child at the moment.

Disclaimer: your MOM's disclaimer. HA

(seriously?)

(yeah.)

Anyways, just trying to get myself out of my slump. Enjoy if you can and just clicky-click the back button if you can't, yeah?

* * *

It was an unsurprising and unremarkable day, so at about three in the afternoon, sitting in their dorm room, Demyx devised a way to amuse himself.

"Zexion, you have no personality," he told his roommate.

Zexion blinked and looked up at Demyx, then back at his laptop. He'd gone over the page limit for his English Lit essay when he wasn't paying attention again. Normally this sort of thing wasn't a problem, especially seeing as how he wasn't even remotely close to being an English major and had psych chapters to read, but his teacher was convinced it was an essential life skill to be able to make an argument in a short space. Or, as Zexion preferred to view it, without adequately exploring any single one of your points.

He deleted something he knew she'd deem a superfluous sentence and pursed his lips.

"Oh," he said, and brought up a game of solitaire to as to look busy. "Why do you say that?"

"Because you don't!" Demyx insisted, staring at him from his bed across the room.

God save Zexion from over-analytical behavioral sociology majors who didn't know how to turn it off outside the classroom. What had possessed this boy to give up the dream of being a guitarist in a band somewhere for the sake of what was barely a science was beyond him.

"Everyone has a personality," Zexion said blandly. "Even if it's a lack of one. That's a trait."

"That's my point," Demyx settled himself against the wall with his butt on his pillow. He stared outside sullenly. "Like, if someone said to me, 'Dem, what's your roommate like?', I so wouldn't be able to answer. I can't really say that you're quiet, or that you don't like people, or that you're really bookish 'cause…I mean, I just draw a blank."

"Maybe you don't know me well enough." He offered this explanation while quitting out of solitaire and just clicking on his web browser. He scrolled down his list of bookmarks.

"That's the thing, Zexy! I definitely feel like I…_know_ you, I just…ugh, you just have no personality! It's not a bad thing."

"How is not having a personality not a _bad_ thing?"

"I don't know…I mean, it's not exactly a _good_ thing either, but…"

Zexion didn't like behavioral sociologists. He felt that their entire field was based off of bullshit. Some people said it was just psychology applied to the masses.

Bullshit, Zexion told those people. It was a bunch of amateur psychologists with too much time on their hands poking their noses where they most certainly didn't belong. Honestly, what did having a personality have to do with – anything, really?

But, still, it would bother him. "I have a personality," he told Demyx with a dull note of finality. As if that were that.

"Oh yeah?" Demyx asked him. "Prove it!"

"What?"

"Prove you have a personality!"

"How? I mean – what? How would I do that?"

Demyx shrugged and tapped at the band poster on his wall. "I dunno." He clasped his hands together and leaned forward on the bed. "Tell us something interesting about yourself, Mr. Smith!"

"That's not my last name."

"I know. I was being sarcastic."

Zexion sighed in the manner of the much-put-upon and wiggled his feet out from underneath the blanket. "I have five different pairs of panda socks, none of which I bought, and all of which were given to me by separate people on separate occasions to celebrate separate events. I wear one every weekday."

"You're not wearing any right now!" Demyx accused him with a sort of childish tone.

"Because I don't have any more classes today. I don't plan on going out for the rest of the day. It's plenty warm in here." He settled himself underneath the blankets.

Truth be told, it was getting to him. No personality? He had a personality. It was quite well hidden under and impressive layer of hair and logo-less sweatshirts, but there were things about Zexion that you'd never be able to guess. He just didn't…flaunt it. Nothing wrong with that.

Demyx had a personality, anyone could assure you of that. He was so bright he obscured the things around him. (In a bad way.) He brought friends to the dorm all the time. Talked on the phone. He was a loud typer, too, which was infuriating if you were trying to sleep the day before a mid-term.

And he had this _thing_ about dolphins. It was a little bit creepy, now that Zexion thought about it.

"Fine," Demyx relented. "So you're Zexion, Demyx's roommate and the guy with the panda socks. I mean, come _on_! I have weird socks, that's not the most defining thing about my personality!"

"I'm gay, how's that for personality?"

It was difficult to come back from that; he was the man's roommate, so Demyx couldn't very well act homophobic unless he wanted the rest of the year to be hideously awkward. He could try the whole acceptance thing – 'Oh, I'm cool with it, yeah, that's totally cool, there was uh, this guy at my high school, I think he was gay, we talked a few times' – or go further and talk about gay rights or some such shit.

The point was he would try not to offend Zexion. And so Zexion would have the upper hand.

Haha Demyx.

Haha.

"Psh," the blond answered, blowing bangs out of his face. "So? I am too. That's not a personality trait any more than straight is."

Oh. Crap. That would cause…complications.

"Uh," said Zexion. "I'm at a loss here. What do you…want to know?"

(The thing was he wasn't all that great at, um, losing arguments?)

"Hm." Demyx seemed very interested in this new aspect of the conversation. "I know! We'll – uh, play twenty questions, how about that?"

"No, Demyx. I have things to do." In his case, things signified playing the latest escape-the-room puzzle game on his favorite gaming website, which could take at least an hour if it was a good one and he didn't use any cheats.

"I have faster ways."

"Fine. Do one of those. Send me a facebook quiz if that will get this done sooner."

Demyx licked his lips thoughtfully and took a few minutes to think.

And Zexion was confused. They still lived in a homophobic society, didn't they? As accepting as Demyx was, even if he was just as gay, it would at least take a few minutes to process. It wasn't like confessing you actually _liked_ the grape Jolly Ranchers. It took a little bit of thinking out.

Perhaps he was doing that now. Demyx had that same face on as he had whenever he worked on his dissertation (that Demyx was writing a dissertation was still a little astounding) – that is to say, completely blank, with his eyebrows raised and his eyes trained on the bedpost. He licked his lips and drummed his fingertips together.

"Okay, so what's your type?"

"Type of what?"

His roommate stared at him in disbelief, carding a distracted hand through his blond fauxhawk. "Type. You know, like…people you're attracted to."

"Men, Demyx," Zexion said sarcastically. "That's what it means to be gay."

"Yeah but not _all_ men. What _kind_ of men?"

"I don't _know_. It's not like I have enough data to recognize a _trend_ here."

There was another bout of aggressive silence, Zexion twisting the soft hair at base of his hairline and distractedly scrolling down a list of games. This sudden attack on his countenance was, he deemed, a little unnecessary.

"We can…identify a trend."

"Demyx…" he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're biting your own teeth, here."

"Want me to bite yours?"

"That would be awkward."

Demyx pursed his lips and crossed his arms, flopping back on the bed, his head indenting the pillow like a bowling ball. "What a boring reaction. You were supposed to be at least a _little_ flustered."

"Uh-huh." Fucking sociologists.

"Zexi-_oooooon_."

"What?" he deadpanned.

It wasn't that Zexion hated Demyx, far from it; it was just that he had no respect for his roommate's chosen future profession. It was also that Demyx was one of those people who turned the volume up way too far on his iPod, so anyone near him could hear the tinny bass beats, and Zexion was becoming far too familiar with the sensation of falling asleep with that noise coming from the other side of the room.

"Can I kiss you?"

"Will you shut up?"

"Probably."

"No."

He'd never applied much thought to the concept of kissing real people. That was, free gay men. Celebrities, sure, even the odd straight guy or two had made an appearance in his dreams, but when he actually sat down and thought about his _lips_ touching someone else's _lips_ he felt a little disgusted.

Demyx was a walking stereotype.

Zexion didn't like taking chances.

There. Problem solved. No more to be said about the whole thing.

He also had this thing about opportunities, and okay, life was short and all that, so maybe he was an intellectual snob. He touched a finger to his lips and felt nothing but cold clamminess.

"What does kissing have to do with anything?" he asked after a long pause.

The blond looked triumphant; his eyebrows raised, his mouth open, and suddenly he sat up in the bed. "Ha!" he cried. "You _are_ thinking about it!"

"That doesn't answer my question."

Demyx considered this, frowned, and stared out the window. "It has to do with I want to kiss you," he said sagely. "How about now?"

Zexion touched his lips with his other hand, which was just as cold, and thought about heat transfer.

He closed his laptop and put it on the floor.

"Better reason," he justified.

* * *

A/N: Seriously though, for once I'm not looking for concrit. I don't really feel like improving this. It'd be like having your friend read the other part of a play script so you can practice your part and telling them they aren't acting it properly. i.e. pointless because they're not going to fix it anyway.

OH MAN NITLON DO YOU REMEMBER WRITING STUFF WITH SUBSTANCE AHAHAHA THOSE WERE GOOD TIMES -sob-

...review?


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